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“We’re going to move a lot of our engineering department over to that new building, and the pit crew facility will be over there. So that way there’s more space for four cars on NASCAR, and then that new building, the square footage it will house his F1 cars.”

“Every inch of the circuit is covered by cameras that can pan, tilt and zoom. The locals, at least at the more “mature” circuits, know which cameras cover the usual problem areas, and have them pre-set to cover precisely those zones. Remember that depending on the circuit, these local race control guys might be doing this every two weeks for years now (Spa, Silverstone, Hockenheim, etc…). Also remember that each camera is connected to a [digital video recorder], so every second of every camera gets recorded… just in case.”

Comment of the day

More thoughts on the widely-debated topic of engine noise from another fan who’s been to a race this year:

I attended the Malaysian Grand Prix through the weekend and didn’t think the sound or volume of the new engines was too bad to be fair. They make a nice sound and they still sound like fast, powerful race car engines. The various other noises from the turbo and hybrid systems also sound pretty cool.

Yes they are quieter than the engines we have had over the past 20+ years but I found them to be a lot louder than I was expecting based on all the whining been done on the internet and in the media. They’re still fairly loud, There in no way near been silent (Like the Le Mans diesels) and it is still a very impressive sound when you have 22 of them revving ready for the start.

I took my cousin along, She had never been to a race before and isn’t a big race fan so she had no preconceptions about the noise. The noise/volume didn’t hurt her experience at the track in any way and she was still wowed by the speed of the cars and the overall performance. She was blown away by the braking performance and just how quickly these cars accelerate out of corners.
Said she’d like to go with me to another F1 race in the future so the new sound certainly didn’t put her off in any way as many was saying it would turn new fans away.

I would suggest that all the people doing the complaining who have not heard the sound in person yet should stop there complaining until they do because in the flesh they still sound awesome even if they are a bit quieter.DaveFLO

60 comments on Haas has big plans for his F1 team – Busch

“The Haas Automation brand is, to me, what his passion is, and he sees his ability to create a stronger footprint globally,” Busch said. “F1 is a footprint to advertise in, and to create your brand’s name in motorsports, you do it with F1. There’s no other ranking higher.”

This is the most positive I’ve ever heard an driver in a major US series talk about F1. Very nice to read; as is the stories of how serious and committed Haas is.

Didn’t really follow WTCC this weekend, but I’m guessing whoever people stopped Loeb from doing a few F1 races in 2008 must be feeling stupider with every new series Loeb enters..

Speaking of stupid; that’s the only word I’m willing to donate to the people impersonating Michael’s family. The rest wouldn’t be very friendly..

Citroen has a fantastic car and Seb Loeb is a top driver and that combination made him. I would not call WTCC boring but there are alternative touring cars series that fit better my taste like DTM, BTCC or even Brazilian stock car…

It’s a shame he’s not continued driving in GT this year. His team are continuing in the Blancpain Sprint series where he performed very well last season, including winning his first race. And they’re are entering the LMP2 class in ELMS, but he won’t be driving in either of them.

Those WTCC races were rather dull. Hopefully it’s just down to that godawful circuit.

It’s all well and good to say people’s opinions on the new engine sound aren’t valid until they hear them in person — but the fact is that most people are going to spend the vast majority of races NOT hearing them in person. I’m not saying there aren’t compelling arguments to be made in favor of the new engines, but I don’t think “actually, they don’t sound half bad when you’re right next to one” is one of them.

I have a full 5:1 surround sound setup and the new cars, allthough quieter, sound good. I can hear all the wooshes and other noises. However when I went away on holiday I watched the Malaysian race on a cheap Lcd telly in the caravan and could not hear the turbo and recovery noises anywhere near as much as at home. I am no sound expert so not sure why this is but thought it was worth making a point about.

So the microphones were fine for the beautiful v8’s and V’10’s but now all of a sudden they are not truly representing the audio of the cars? Really? That’s your supposition? The microphones haven’t changed, the engines obviously have. Don’t blame the audio techs and the equipment for what is obviously lackluster engine noise.

I really hope Haas gets organized better than Catherham and Marussia (and HRT). We need a new team who can get medium term success. Force India (they were Jordan but) is the only “new independent team” who entered the sport and has really achieved good results. Mercedes is a big corporation AND they were based on Brawn, a WCC, so it’s a different story.
It’s so sad to hear Catherham and Marussia’s goals are to get Q2 or to be 10th in the championship, a task that depends sometimes on good luck.

For Caterham and Marussia I personally can forgive them a little because they entered the sport under false pretenses. They’ve done fairly well operating under the assumption that there’d be a budget cap. Still, in their 5th season they should have made steps.

HRT I had less respect for, dropping out of their Dallara contract before the 2010 season even started; they never had the money in place.

Still, I hope Haas will be more of a Force India/Sauber in a few years than another Caterham/Marussia. One of the things I enjoyed about 2009 was that there was no eternal backmarker; sure, Toro Rosso did poorly, but they were hardly at any Minardi level.

For Caterham and Marussia I personally can forgive them a little because they entered the sport under false pretenses.

Perhaps they were told a budget cap would come, but they went into the sport knowing that there wasn’t a budget cap at that moment at all. That’s like spending the money before winning a lottery, you just don’t do that. And it was pretty stupid of them to do that. I do hope Haas fully realizes what he’s getting into (as opposed to the last three teams who entered the sport I guess).

1. Fly to Stuttgart and a get a Mercedes engine supply deal
2. Get Ross Brwan on board (I’d offer him minority share capital)

On drivers, he will be tempted to hire an American driver to please his “constituents” and his best bets would be either Alex Rossi or Conor Daly but he will need an experienced driver in the sister car to help the team develop the car and why not Jenson Button if Ron decides to bring back Alonso to Woking?

As was mentioned above, I really hope Haas does a better job of it than Caterham and Maurussia. Deep pockets are definitely needed but key people with technical expertise, esp. on aerodynamics, are so few on the ground it’s almost as if it’s the one thing that money can’t buy.

To people who are saying that the most important sound of the engine is the one we hear over the TV, I have just one thing to say:

Sound from the FOM feed has always been pure CRAP even compared to the track-side videos uploaded on YouTube! That’s how bad it was, and it was bad because of FOM doing a lousy job in transferring the feeling of force and loudness. Ever heard those fan-made videos? 10 times better. Not to mention that you also feel the speed visually much more, than with FOMs lenses. They have no depth and it looks as if the cars are never really going too fast.

V10s and V8s sounded annoying if anything, when watching on board shots. Sounds was so monotonous that it would feel as if it never changed one bit over the course of the lap. Track-side sound was also extremely poor, compared to the said fan videos.
So before you start talking about engines you’ve never heard in person, think how much of the underwhelming experience comes from FOM’s incompetence or sheer lack of will to actually do a good job. Sound was too low in Australia, because they didn’t even bother to think about altering the setup, now that engines’ sound has changed. It’s just smacks of disinterest and slacking. Which makes it really ironic that it’s Bernie complaining about the sound, since it’s his own company’s job to make sure it is delivered in all its glory through the TV.

To be honest I think it’s not all FOM’s fault, these new circuits have such big run off areas that the camera angles and microphone placement is very difficult to say the least.
Also I doubt any other production company would do a much much better job, look at Fuji TV up until 2011 they produced the trackside footage and you couldn’t tell by looking at camera angles, sound, etc my point is, there’s not much room for improvement unfortunately.

And let’s not forget the broadcasters, even if you have beautiful 1080p picture with high def audio, they still screw up the signal, downgrading it to 720p, very bad audio levels and commentators shouting all over even if nothing exciting happens, anyway you know what I mean.

@mantresx mind you, V10s NEVER sounded bad. Not a single time. Regardless of the tvs, and the signals, which back then were probably a lot worse, they always sounded glorious and I still remember the first time I heard the V8s on the telly at Bahrain qualy in 2006 how bad those new engines sounded. And they sounded rubbish up until Brazil last year…

I have to admit that, although I don’t care too much about the noise now, it is one of two things that got me interested in F1.

When I was a kid back in the late 90’s I had already seen several Indy and Nascar races but when my dad finally got satellite tv and I saw my first F1 race in Belgium I remember two things, it sounded so different than anything else and the speed the cars went trough Eau Rouge was astonishing.

In a way is a bit sad that kids nowadays are less and less likely to be attracted to Formula 1 by the cars themselves thanks to the awful looks and quieter engines. Of course they can always relate to the drivers and be interested by them, but in my opinion it’s just not the same.

If you had to mention one type of industry that is completely relevant to F1 (other than automotive), that is automation . It makes perfect sense to have an F1 team to promote the Haas brand around Europe and Asia, but I still think that they will not make it in time for 2015.

It would appear that Gene Haas is serious about his F1 venture. Though until solid details are known everything is just speculation. Another F1 website had mostly disparaging remarks from the forums euro contingent about an “american” team making the field. The comments ranged from the ridiculous to hateful. How can a sport grow and expand into other markets if this is the prevailing attitude? The expectation is that unless Haas can immediately field a car that is a winner the american venture is a failure. Success takes time and vast amounts of money are required to get to the top of the podium. Hopefully Haas will have plenty of both and maybe earn the respect of the rest of field.

No kidding. Just look how long Ferrari have been in the sport and have won the most with only 16. It’s a tough sport to win. But if they do end up being close to the top teams or by some chance win the WCC it be great and a slap to the face to the naysayers.

I think yesterday we got a bit of a flavour of what the Bahrain GP would have been like had Mercedes not allowed Hamilton and Rosberg to race. I refer of course to yesterday’s WTCC season opener in Morocco, where despite the fact that we had great drivers like Yvan Muller and Sébastien Loeb coupled with the new DTM-esc generation of cars, Citroen managed to manufacture a processional, over-controlled and frankly boring race by not letting the three dominant C-Elysées of Lopez, Muller and Loeb race. My point is, the WTCC is clearly a commercial PR exercise for Citroen to boost road car sales (the huge investment Mercedes have put into their 2014 F1 programme make them guilty of this too), which is completely fine and rational, but to any intelligent team owner it is blatantly obvious that the racing culture is every as important, if not more, than the result. The response to the Bahrain GP makes this plain to see, with Mercedes, in my book at least, getting as much kudos as Hamilton and Rosberg for letting them race, so why Citroen, why must you ruin potentially excellent races between three world class racers?

Disappointed about the news that Ecclestone isn’t going to sell stakes to F1 teams. Of course, that’s if it’s true; there are plenty of reasons why Ecclestone would deny it, even if it were true.

To me, it seems like it would be a neat solution to the problem of the ‘bernie money’ being unevenly split between teams. Instead, why not have all teams have an equal share in the commercial rights, meaning profits are distributed evenly. I suppose Ecclestone isn’t keen, based on the fact it’d probably prevent him from making favourable commercial deals with certain teams and then using that to general/maintain political influence. But hopefully he’ll be in prison soon anyway, and a mutually beneficial arrangement can be agreed upon.